Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

I wouldn’t go an say that this is a trend - two posts in a row - it might very well end up being yet another anomaly, but I am trying. It’s not that I don’t always have things to say, hell when in doubt I always have something to rant about. It just seems that being in front of the keyboard and these moments of deeper insight never seem to coincide. But it’s slow right now, so I’ll try. Of course, as I said, I can always rant about something so I think I’ll stick with that for now.

Without further ado, things that have pissed me off already today (mind you I’ve barely been awake 2 hours) in no particular order:

People who follow me through the door when I first get to work. I get to work before we open so that I can set things up and get things ready for when I put out the open flag at 11. Just because I’m walking in doesn’t mean that we are now open and you should be free to come in. When a place opens at 11, it means quite simply, at 11 you can come in and conduct your business. No sooner than that. It might seem trivial to you, but if you come in and keep me from setting up, when it turns 11 and the customers who come when they are supposed to show up I end up not having anything set up, the place gets chaotic and I spend all day just trying to manage some kind of order. So seriously. 11. It’s not hard.

People who think that 8am is a perfectly acceptable time to use loud power tools outdoors. I don’t care that you’re up bright and early and ready to start your day. Save the loud shit for a little later in the morning. This goes doubly so on weekends. Get over yourself, you’re not Bob Vila, whatever you’re making is probably going to suck anyway.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but all black sneakers are bad enough.. all black sneakers with black socks pulled up to your knees, black shorts, black shirt and pasty white skin is not a fashion statement. However, if you were going for that awkward emo kid look - well no, you had to have been in your 40’s. You’re a waste of good air.

The fucking RIAA trying to raise the prices on internet radio stations thus killing sources of damn good music rather than the three songs played again and again by the craptastic commercial mainstream media. You know what, there’s a ton of awesome local bands out there providing us with free or cheap music, I will sooner go scour the net for them before I will listen to your commercial laiden shitty ass, media friendly music you try to feed us. Do you know why your sales are failing? Because the bands you sign SUCK.

Customers who come in early in the day and then try to pay for a six pack with a hundred dollar bill. First off there’s no way I can make change for that first thing in the day. Secondly, I saw that big wad of other smaller bills stuffed in your wallet. So what does this person do? “Oh, sorry, I don’t have anything else.” then proceed to put the six pack away and walk out the door. Retail really is a great life lesson in why people suck. A mass plague/pandemic actually doesn’t sound all that bad after dealing with people like that.

People getting married on 07/07/07. Seriously, if you think you need luck to get your marriage off on the right foot you should reconsider the whole idea. Just a thought.

That about covers it for now. It’s a long day ahead of me, and we’re going in to a weekend when a lot of people are going to be doing holiday parties so I’m sure it’ll be an adventure. But Denise finally returns home tonight. I don’t work this weekend. And I have a fresh keg of beer in the kegarator. I just have to survive today.

I always have the best of intentions to update this site with far more regularity, especially after all the issues (technical and political) with LiveJournal these days. Of course I haven’t exactly updated that with any regularity either other than to remind people of various Ithaca Beer going ons. I’m sure not really many people read this, which is entirely understandable with how infrequently it has been updated. Though with a good RSS aggregator it saves you from always checking a site for new posts(I love NewsFire, one of the numerous pieces of shareware I’ve registered these days).

Of course on the theme of updating people about events I’ll take this moment to plug our event at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge tonight. Tonight at 7pm Ithaca Beer Co. is having our release party for Kaffinator - a Double Espresso Bock. It’s a beer we collaborated with Gimme! coffee to make. It’s damn good, especially for anyone who loves coffee. There’s closing in on a shot of espresso per bottle. I have the feeling this will be the best release party we’ve thrown in Ithaca yet!

To say Ithaca is eccentric would be the understatement of the year. It’s yet another fine example of the minority being so vocal they color all perceptions of a place. These so called “enlightened” people are some of the most close-minded hypocritical types that I’ve ever met. They claim to want free and open debate, yet if any one takes the opposite side they immediately brand that person as wrong, or stupid. They have very little tolerance for the things they don’t believe in. It’s what has driven me away from this town several times now. If not for the very good friends I have here I doubt I would have moved back.

However this most recent nonsense has really spurred that whole restless I need to get out of here feeling. I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m not coming to the defense of Bush, Chenney, or any of our current administration. I do feel they have been extremely short sighted and done several things that have eroded our civil liberties, and that may take several generations to recover from. Do I think they’ve mislead the public? Yes, yes I do. Do I think they have flat out lied to people? Quiet likely they have. Do I think they they should be impeached? I’m not sure I have the information or the legal knowledge to make that kind of decision. All that said our local county government should be tossed to the curb.

We have more than enough problems in our county that have nothing to do with the federal government, that can be solved at home if our local leaders would actually take the time to address them rather than waste county time and money by passing resolutions outside the scope of their power. If they want to write letters to their congressmen and senators, or petition the Power that Be, that’s fine, but do not try to insult those of us who are capable of thinking on our own by saying that it is your elected duty to pass resolutions asking for the President to be impeached. I’d like to know why all the construction around here has been so delayed, why there are setbacks, why there are financial overruns in those areas. What are they doing to help keep unemployment in check? What are they doing to help support our local infrastructure such as police, fire, and the hospital? Instead of tackling these issues which affect the quality of our everyday life they chose to enter in to a realm that they have no authority over because it’s easier to throw yourself at a wall than it is to fix problems that are within the scope of your own power. The only thing that upsets me more is that these actions are being applauded as a brave step and the right thing to do. Impeach whoever you want, but if we ignore the little problems in our own front lawns it won’t matter what the hell happens on the federal level because our quality of life will have been directly, every single day impacted due to the neglect of our local leaders.

Our county government wants to hold Bush accountable for the war and eroding freedoms? Well that’s fine. I want to hold our local administration accountable for declining educational standards in the county, an increase in theft and other property related crimes, and their constant roadblocks to small local businesses who they claim to support. Being a part of a small local business I can tell you that most of the local administration has little interest in doing anything that might make a positive impact.

Between the temperature changing which has been causing my sinuses to go in to overdrive, and the demon spawn cats I managed to get very little sleep last night.

The cats really were a tag team effort.  Heinlein started it off with her standing beside the bed and letting out these meows that sounded like she was some 60 year old chain smoker.  It didn’t take her long to quiet down, but as soon as I fell back asleep she leaped up on the bed and began to lick my head.   Nothing like a sand paper tongue across your scalp to make sleep difficult.  Finally got her convinced to go settle down on the other side of the bed when I ended up having to get up to take sinus medication because my head felt like it was going to explode.  Sleep finally came again, but didn’t last long.  Oliver curled up on top of my legs for a nice nap, but apparently Monty decided nap time was over and it was now play time as he kept leaping on top of Oliver.   Oliver ignored him for awhile but Monty must have gotten a good bite in because Oliver yelped and went on the offensive.  I kept tossing them off the bed, but they kept leaping back up to continue with their battle royale.  By the time they ran off to go fight or sleep, or whatever they did in the other room I managed a bit of sleep before the alarm went off.  Today I am a zombie.  I love the dumbshit cats, but damned if I didn’t want to lock them in a small closet somewhere far far away from me.  The seemingly obvious answer would be to close the bedroom door, but I know that wouldn’t work.  All three of them would unite in a cacaphony of unearthly meowing, taking shifts so they could keep it up all night long.

These are just cats - it really makes me wonder how people ever have more than once child.  I’ve heard the stories.  After experiencing that once how could you ever want to put yourself through that again?